From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Fig-uratively speaking

7 March 2010 The Revd Jenny Wilkens

• Isaiah 55:1-9
• Psalm 63:1-9
• 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
• Luke 13:1-9

http://cathedral.wellington.net.nz/index.php/Sermons

'I don't give a fig about that!' you may hear someone say, but fortunately our Farmers' Market does give a fig - and here is the evidence! I was privy to an interesting conversation yesterday morning as some of our Senior Saints came into their service, laden down with bags from the Farmers' Market, baguettes sticking out of their walkers. They were commenting how easily young people seemed to be parting with their money at the market…

Later I chatted to some people who'd come to the market and had come in to have a look at the Cathedral and were commenting almost wistfully about why hadn't they come in here before. I thought of the phrase from our Isaiah reading: 'why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy?' (Isaiah 55:2).

I wanted them to hear Isaiah's wonderful invitation to come to God's banquet, God's steadfast sure love freely offered to all, God's abundant grace and mercy poured out for us, to feed the longings of the soul. It's like a glorious Farmer's Market where you don't need any money, but are invited to wallow in God's generosity of spirit.

'Nations that do not know you shall run to you' (Is 55:5) - at the moment we have people running to us here, it almost looks like that as you see people swarming up the hill on Saturday mornings to the market, and as we see people coming in to look around the awesome display of creativity and colour reflected in the Arts Encompassing exhibition within our walls.

What is the message we have to give to those who visit us this Lenten season? Well it is an urgent one actually - do think about how you're feeling on the inside as much as on the outside, about what you are doing to nurture your soul, as much as to nurture your body. Or in Isaiah's words: Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.

Turn away from what is not helping you in your life. Turn around to face God. Return to the Lord, that we may experience the abundant mercy and pardon he longs to give us.

Turning and returning. That is the message of Lent, that is the meaning of repentance. It's not just for Lent, but perhaps Lent focuses for us that repentance needs to become for us not just an occasional twinge of guilt or conviction of sin, but a life-long attitude of turning and returning to God.

The film 'Love Story' is famous for its phrase, 'Love means never having to say you're sorry.' Perhaps the lesson of a lifetime for us is to learn that love means ever having to say you're sorry - to others and to God. Not just in some sort of self-demeaning Uriah Heep false humility, but rather a genuine turning to right relationship with others and with God, God who offers forgiveness to us freely without cost, and yet at great cost, the cost of the cross.

Paul seems to go to the other extreme in his warning to the Corinthians - he gives them a rather stern reminder not to take all this for granted, not to presume on God's forbearance and patience with our so often recalcitrant natures! Just as God's people became complacent with the symbols of God's faithfulness in the wilderness, so we Anglicans can so easily take for granted the riches of our heritage, the familiar routines of our worship and sacraments.

'If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.' Lent is an opportunity to pay closer attention to our lives in all their dimensions, to acknowledge our common humanity and its propensities, but never to lose heart or give up on ourselves. For Paul reminds us strongly of God's faithfulness when we are under pressure, if we will but turn to God in the midst of our struggles, and not away from him.

That too is the message of our Gospel today: first the wake-up call in those rather gory stories of Pilate killing Galileans in the temple and then of untimely disaster in the fall of the tower of Siloam. Events of terrorism and natural disaster in our own time in recent years and even days remind us too of life's fragility and of our own mortality. There but for the grace of God go I… Jesus' urgent call to repentance and turning to God in the face of life's uncertainties is balanced by the parable with which our Gospel reading ends. And so we return to the figs and the fig-tree, or rather the lack of them. For God the patient gardener does give a fig about this poor unproductive tree.

I'm no gardener, and I don't know about you, but I wonder, those of you who are gardeners, whether you are an impatient or patient gardener? Do you rush for the chainsaw or the pruning shears if nothing is happening to a tree in your garden, or do you too like the gardener in this story redouble your efforts, pour on that extra care, talk to it if you think it will help, whatever it takes to give that tree another chance to grow into the potential for which it was created?

For that is what God does with us. God never gives up on us. As the testimony of the Biblical record over the centuries tells us, God keeps reaching out to his people, longing for them to turn away from what is not satisfying, and to turn to God who can satisfy the hungers and thirst of the spirit.

And when we do turn to God, God delights to come alongside us in tending and nurturing our growth to maturity, our bearing fruit in fulfilment of the potential placed within us. That is the grace-filled work of God in our lives.

So what is God's word for you today? Is it a message of warning, the urgent call to repent - to turn away from things that hurt us, and towards God? Is it the challenge not to take the good things of God for granted? Is it a reminder of God's forbearance and mercy, that God never gives up on us, keeps reaching out to us, longs for our growth and our fruitfulness?

Perhaps it is a call to 'live in God's grace', as I have noted on the front of today's newssheet. Not to take it for granted, but to live joyfully and in gratitude for the abundance of God's love and grace poured out upon us.

'Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.' (from Amazing Grace - John Newton)